Syracuse football team takes a break from practice with a paintball battle

Fort Drum — It was the skirmish before the scrimmage, and it was perhaps the saddest example of leading from the front ever witnessed on a U.S. Army post. Fortunately for the nation and those whose mission is protecting it the battle was paintball and the combatants were Syracuse University football players — and their coaches.

“The old reliable strategy of sitting back and waiting paid off,” said Lt. Greg Durso, explaining politely how a team that included head coach Doug Marrone and most of his assistants won the day, if not the hearts of those who applaud valor over victory.

The setting Friday morning was Fort Drum, where the Orange has spent the past week bonding and practicing in an Army setting. Its boot camp will culminate at 1:30 p.m. Saturday with a full scrimmage. The prelude was the paintball skirmish, a welcome respite from the rigors of camp.

The prize was a football with a 10th Mountain Division logo on it placed in the middle of a field covered with a variety of large bright yellow blow-up bags, tires and a large concrete wall at each end to hide behind. The object was to retrieve the ball and lug it back behind the wall without getting shot by a paintball traveling at 230 feet per second.

“This is your world,” Lt. Durso explained to the four teams about to compete — the Destroyers, Blackhawks, Comanches and Apaches, named for companies in the 287th Infantry Battalion — as he held up the ball.

The ball may have been their world, but the players clearly had a different target in mind — Marrone and his staff, who with a few notable exceptions had enlisted on the Destroyers, a team that also featured the Orange linebackers.

“If you’re over 62 you’re out of the Army,” said assistant coach John Anselmo, one of the exemptions. “I got an honorable discharge.”

The others were not so lucky, although one of them was clearly ready to serve. Running backs coach Tyrone Wheatley arrived in full camouflage — OK, he was wearing bright orange and white Nikes, too — and a gym bag containing his private paintball gun and ammo.

“He looks like Rambo,” one of the Army members in attendance offered.

The rest of the coaches adopted the kind of gallows humor common among soldiers about to be sent over the wall.

“Hey, this isn’t our first rodeo, boys,” said defensive coordinator Scott Shafer said, trying to fire up the troops.

“Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em,” was the sober response from Bob Brotski, an assistant athletic director who is in charge of player development.

The coaches watched tentatively from the background as the opening round commenced and the firing began. Freshman offensive guard Omari Palmer kicked it off by throwing his 320 pounds behind a kamikaze charge that ended badly — “My brain is out there on that field” — and it ended with walk-on punter Riley Dixon going down in a hail of fire — “I was like, chill guys, I’m out, but it was blam, blam, blam, blam, blam.”

Then the coaches joined the fray and it became clear they intended to use their target status to turn the tables on their antagonists. Translation: They hid behind the wall and fired while the linebackers did all the work.

“We knew everybody would be gunning for them,” sophomore Dyshawn Davis said. “We used them as bait.”

“Only four killed,” Marrone said after his Destroyers won the round. “We dominated.”

The bravado turned to excuses when they lost the next round in only 15 seconds when safety Jeremi Wilkes sprinted to the middle of the field, picked up the ball and returned it safely to his lines.

In the end the strategy — coaches hiding and linebackers doing all the work — paid off, although the other teams believed some cheating was involved.

In fairness, not all the coaches played it safe. Director of Football Operations Kevin Van Derzee ventured often into the open, braving a parade of paint whizzing past him. Defensive line coach Tim Daoust took one for the team during one round and was offered the “medal of valor” by his fellow coaches.

“I stood tall for a while,” he said. “Give the flag to my wife.”

Offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett made a mad dash to the front during the final round and also bought the farm. And Wheatley, named MVP and given Durso’s Ranger tab as a prize, was everywhere, hiding in tall weeds and using his camouflage to great advantage at one point and barreling over the stack of tires surrounding the prized football at another.

“You can’t be an MVP without a great supporting cast, and we had Coach Marrone over there to direct us as usual and laying down fire,” Wheatley said. “But it was a great time, great fun.”